


dreams can make me see

by Anonymous



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Humor, F/F, Possibly Unrequited Love, totally not based on a past crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: hyunjin is not good with crushes.
Relationships: Jeon Heejin/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul/Kim Hyunjin, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43
Collections: AML's Holiday Fic Exchange 2019





	dreams can make me see

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stonebuddhism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonebuddhism/gifts).



> im sorry if this is rushed and all over the place bc i wrote most of it in a day, but i hope everyone enjoys and has a happy holiday season!!!   
> title from bvndit's fly (excellent bside check it out!)

Hyunjin likes to tell herself that she’s good with crushes. And to some extent, it’s true; she doesn’t stay up late watching romance anime the way Yerim does, doesn’t doodle edgy song lyrics on her binder like Hyejoo. No, Kim Hyunjin is reserved and mature around anyone she’s attracted to, and she definitely doesn’t do stupid things for her crushes.

Definitely not.

“Hyunjin? Earth to Hyunjin?” 

Chaewon’s voice breaks her out of her train of thought. Hyunjin blinks, and her eyelashes hit the front of her goggles uncomfortably. “What is it?”

“We’re ready to go in,” Chaewon informs her gleefully. “I’m sure Jinsol is going to appreciate this  _ so  _ much.” 

Hyunjin sometimes suspects that the younger girl thrives on her misery. 

The lake in front of them seems large and endless, although logically she knows it’s twenty feet deep at the most, and she swallows. “Why can’t Jungeun do this? She’s the swimmer. Or you. You’re all ready.”

“You volunteered,” Chaewon says. She’s lounging on a float, hopefully-unnecessary life jacket in hand. “Plus Jinsol will be really happy.”

Jinsol  _ will  _ be really happy. The older girl had dropped her goggles in the lake, and nobody else was both capable enough and willing to retrieve them, so here Hyunjin is, about to dive into a murky lake when she’s afraid of fish. 

Coincidentally, she has a crush on Jinsol. Just a small one.

So maybe she isn’t that great with crushes.

“Come on!” Chaewon hollers. Hyunjin hesitates, and Chaewon sighs. “Yeojin!”

“What are you-”

Someone pushes Hyunjin into the lake.

-

The water is fucking freezing. Hyunjin thinks she screams a little bit on the way down, even though she’s totally more dignified than that, and when she surfaces she yelps again because  _ something just touched her leg.  _ “Park Chaewon, I’m going to  _ kill _ you,” she hollers. She turns around to see Yeojin on the dock with a shit-eating grin on her face. “You too, Yeojin!”

“Just get the goggles,” Chaewon calls. She looks far too smug for someone who’d just orchestrated an elaborate plot to get Hyunjin in the water. “You can kill me later.”

“Believe me, I’m going to,” Hyunjin mutters. She takes a deep breath and dives under.

She’s not a bad swimmer, but she’s trained for pools, not lakes. The thought of seaweed or fish dragging her down almost makes her physically shudder, so she renews her efforts and squints through the water for the goggles. She wants to get this over with.

Her first pass yields nothing, so she comes up for air before diving again. This time, she spots the glint of Jinsol’s neon blue goggles through the water, and she pushes a stray leaf out of her face, grabbing the goggles. Victory is near; she can taste it.

Then something brushes against her leg. Hyunjin looks down to see a fish.

She shrieks, but all that comes out is bubbles. She drops the goggles in her moment of panic, but the fish is already gone. Hyunjin knows it’ll be hard to find the goggles again, but her lungs are already burning. Jinsol’s brown eyes flash in her mind, and she dives deeper, grabbing the goggles and catapulting to the surface.

Chaewon and her float are already waiting, and the younger girl grabs the goggles from Hyunjin’s outstretched arm and tosses them to Yeojin, still on the dock. “Help me up,” Hyunjin pants, out of breath.

Thinking nothing of it, Chaewon extends a hand to Hyunjin. “Good-”

Her words are cut off as Hyunjin pulls her into the water.

-

**_interlude: a short history of kim hyunjin and camp luna_ **

Hyunjin had met her band/friend group at this sleepaway camp three years ago, and they’d united over a shared love of music and pranks. There were twelve of them, which was rather a lot for any group and resulted in multiple chaotic group chats. There were the hags- Sooyoung, who sometimes sang but mostly pretended she was hired to dance, Vivi, who played the keyboard and kept them sane, and Haseul, who sang and led them. Jinsol, because of her age, technically belonged to the hag category, but Hyunjin never thought of her as such. She could play the guitar and sing and do all kinds of things, and it was incredibly impressive. The semi-hags, Jiwoo (who sang and played the flute, which technically didn’t belong with their style of music but whatever) and Jungeun (who had given up on music after a lot of creative differences and was now their manager so she had an actual excuse to yell at them), tended to talk to the older girls more, but Hyunjin still liked them. If she was sticking to this classification system, Hyunjin, the resident decent-at-everything but good-at-nothing idiot, Heejin, the resident actually-good-at-everything weeb, and Chaewon, the resident Soundcloud rapper, were semi-babies, which would make Hyejoo, the drummer, Yeojin, the other Soundcloud rapper, and Yerim, the snack provider, the actual babies.

They probably weren’t the most musically balanced group, but it was fine. They liked each other.

Mostly.

In the case of Hyunjin and Jinsol, maybe too much.

-

Hyunjin sneezes. She’s in her cabin, sitting in front of the fire. “I think you gave me a cold, Chaewon,” she mutters, although Chaewon is nowhere nearby. This is not how she’d planned to spend her last day at camp.

The door bangs open, and Hyunjin jumps. It’s only Jinsol, holding a mug of hot chocolate. “Hyunjin!” she says. “There you are.” She hurries over to Hyunjin, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“How are you? I really appreciate you getting those goggles for me.”

“I’m fine,” Hyunjin says. She wants to squirm away from Jinsol’s touch, but it’s warmth, so that’s something. “Is that for me?”

“Oh! Yes,” Jinsol says, putting down the hot chocolate. “Here, drink this. I’m going to take care of you.”

“I’m not even sick,” she tries, but seeing as it’s mostly a lie, her words fall on deaf ears. 

Jinsol pushes the hot chocolate into Hyunjin’s hands and wraps a blanket around her. “There you go. I’m going to stay with you until the feast, okay? Do you want to play Uno?”

“You should go out,” Hyunjin says weakly. “I’m- going to go out later too. Sure.”

“I made Yerim bring you food,” Jinsol says, “once they’re done. Hopefully you should be better for stargazing.”

“Hopefully,” Hyunjin echoes. The twelve of them sleep under the stars on the last night of camp every year, and she really hopes that she can make it this year. 

“You and I are always awake for the longest time,” Jinsol says, nostalgia clear in her voice. “Remember last year we saw the shooting star? What did you wish for?”

Hyunjin swallows. She’d wished for Jinsol.

“I don’t believe in wishes,” she says, and she hopes Jinsol can’t tell that it’s a lie.

“That’s sad,” Jinsol says, but she doesn’t question it. “I guess I can’t tell you mine, then.” 

Hyunjin takes a sip of the hot chocolate. It’s just a tad too sweet. “That’s okay,” she says.

-

**_interlude: a short history of kim hyunjin and love_ **

Hyunjin has never had a girlfriend in all of her sixteen years.

In sixth grade, she’d had her first crush. It just so happened to be on her best friend.

Sixth graders aren’t that great with emotions, so, needless to say, Hyunjin didn’t get anything out of that other than a new best friend.

In eighth grade, her next serious crush had been on one of the popular girls. They’d barely known each other, but Hyunjin began to lose the ability to speak every time said popular girl came within fifteen meters of her.

She’d tried to be friends. That didn’t really work, either, as the popular girl had better things to do than talk to the founder of the Cat Club.

Then there was the first year of camp. Hyunjin was by this time convinced that love was just Not For Her, despite the fact that nobody really finds love in middle school, and by the time she’d met Heejin she was already cynical.

The other thing that seemed to unite their band was a shared gayness of some sort, but Hyunjin had never been sure about Heejin. She seemed too perfect to be the kind of person with hopeless crushes on pretty girls like Hyunjin or the kind of person who flirted badly with everyone with nice eyes like Jiwoo, but that didn’t stop Hyunjin from developing a small crush on her. 

Camp was making Hyunjin bold, so on the last night of camp, she tried to confess to Heejin under the stars. Heejin shifted awkwardly, and she muttered something that sounded vaguely like “you’re cool, Hyunjin, but of course I like someone else.”

“Of course?” Hyunjin had said. “Am I that horrible?”

Heejin waved her hands frantically. “No, no! I just- it would be convenient to like you. Because then we’d like each other and nobody would get hurt.”

Hyunjin understood, but the damage had been done.  _ Of course _ nobody liked her. It wasn’t like she was special or anything.

And then along came Jinsol.

The problem with Hyunjin’s crush on Jinsol? It just didn’t go away.

-

Hyunjin is better by the time they go stargazing, so she reluctantly agreed to move her sleeping bag from the comfort of the cabin she shared with the other semi-babies and out to the field. By the time she got there (after a lot of huffing and puffing, because of course Hyunjin wasn’t very athletic either), the only space left was next to Jinsol, which was unfortunate because Hyunjin really wanted to avoid the temptation to pull another Heejin and confess. 

Yerim, on Hyunjin’s other side, poked her. “Hey, Hyunjin! I brought you some leftover food.” She hands Hyunjin a covered plate of what seems to be lasagna and cake. 

“Thank you,” Hyunjin says, and she means it. Yerim is always so considerate. “I appreciate it.”

She pokes at the food while everyone else gets settled. It’s still warm, which is a small miracle considering the cold night. Jinsol eyes the cake. “That looks so good, Hyunjin.”

“You had dessert,” Hyunjin mutters, “you don’t need it.”

Jinsol makes  _ that face  _ at Hyunjin, some unholy combination of puppy dog eyes and a smile, and Hyunjin melts. She cuts off a piece of cake with her fork and hands it to Jinsol. “Here. Only this.”

Instead of taking the fork like a normal person, Jinsol eats the cake off the fork. She’s scarily close to Hyunjin, who gulps. Somehow this feels both romantic and not, but maybe it’s just Jinsol being weird.

Putting on a brave face, Hyunjin tugs the fork back once Jinsol is done. “What was that for?”

Jinsol pulls a hand out of her sleeping bag. It’s in a mitten. “I thought I would drop the fork.”

“Oh,” says Hyunjin, still confused.

Yerim pokes her again. “Haseul’s lecturing is starting. Shush.”

Every year, Haseul makes up constellations and tells stories about them on the spot. Some of the others contribute, but Hyunjin likes to sit back and relax. Haseul always begins by rambling about how much she loves all of them, and Hyunjin ignores this part, choosing instead to look up at the stars. It’s early so they’re not all showing, but the stars she can see are as bright as usual.

Haseul enthusiastically clicks on her laser pointer. “And a special thanks to Sooyoung for buying me this possibly-illegal laser so I can point out stars, also a special thanks to Jungeun for lecturing me about not hitting planes! The first constellation that we can see over here is the potato and cheese empanada- look, the filling is spilling out! It’s distinguishable by the little folds in space here…”

Hyunjin snorts. “I hope Haseul never becomes a scientist,” she mutters to herself.

Jinsol hears, and she laughs. She’s always had a loud laugh, so Hyunjin winces a little bit to herself as Haseul’s head snaps around to meet Hyunjin’s eyes. “Do not criticize me,” she says. “I hear everything. Now, this over here is the desk lamp…”

Somewhere around the fifth empanada flavor, Haseul falls asleep, and Yeojin takes over for a few rapper constellations before falling asleep herself. Yerim snores, and as usual, Hyunjin can’t get to sleep. She looks over at Jinsol, whose eyes are fixed on the sky.

“I always hope to see another shooting star,” Jinsol murmurs. “The one I saw last year was the only one.”

“Really?” Hyunjin says. “I saw one the first year.”

“I could sleep better then,” Jinsol says ruefully, and before Hyunjin can ask her what that means, she gasps and points out a trail of light in the sky. “Look! It’s a meteor.”

Hyunjin follows the spark to where it fades. “Is that the official scientific name?”

“Yeah,” Jinsol whispers. “I’d be a better scientist than Haseul.”

Hyunjin laughs. They sit in silence for a moment. She looks over at Jinsol, snuggled in her sleeping bag just like a moth in its cocoon. 

She’s beautiful, but Hyunjin already knew that.

“I made a wish,” Hyunjin says quietly. 

“What was it?”

_ Now or never, _ Hyunjin thinks. “I wished to spend more time with you.”

Jinsol slumps in her sleeping bag, but she smiles at Hyunjin nevertheless. “I want that too. I have to leave camp next year, though. I’m going to be too old.”

Hyunjin had almost forgotten. This is the hags’ last year. 

“Oh.”

“We’ll still keep hanging out,” Jinsol insists. “I think Haseul is going to apply to be a counselor.”

“Everything falls apart,” Hyunjin whispers. She’d known the twelve of them were too good to be true. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Jinsol says, and it sounds like she means it. “We won’t. You’re such a good friend, Hyunjin. And I’m so glad you’re here.”

The words create a golden feeling in Hyunjin’s chest, like the sun is rising in her stomach, but she knows what Jinsol means.

They’re friends. That’s it.

She should stop being an edgy idiot and go to sleep.

-

Hyunjin spends at least a week after camp moping. She’s not sure why she’s so sad when nobody has officially broken her heart or anything, but she’s also not sure how to get out of the Endless Sad, so she mopes.

The various group chats she’s in (one for all twelve of them, one for people in her age group like Heejin and Chaewon, and one for Yeojin, Chaewon, and Jinsol to talk about rapping that she seems to have been mistakenly added to) all buzz for days after camp is over. A lot of it is about the hags’ departure, and Hyunjin dutifully sends out texts that make fun of them and are vaguely emotional over them in equal measure. 

They’ll see each other throughout the year, but not as much. Hyunjin resigns herself to the fact that summer, and with it the delusion of love, is over and prepares for school.

-

Sooyoung organizes a New Years’ party for them, probably because she has nothing else to do and her house is the biggest. Hyunjin doesn’t see the point of not going, so she texts the group chat that yes, she’s free, and because she’s in a good mood she even lets Jiwoo, the only one to go to the same school as her, come over and force her into nicer clothes.

“That’s good,” Jiwoo says, stepping back and inspecting Hyunjin after the fifth outfit. “Gold is definitely your color. Come to think of it, it would be a good change for the new decade if you-”

“I am not dying my hair,” Hyunjin interrupts. She can see where this is going. “Maybe a new change for the new decade would be losing those bangs of yours.”

Jiwoo gasps in fake outrage. “How dare you even suggest that? My bangs are an essential part of my personality.”

“That’s what Hirai Momo said before break,” Hyunjin says darkly, “and look at her now.”

Jiwoo sighs. “I will  _ consider  _ it. Maybe. But don’t let this hair conversation distract us from your makeup.”

Hyunjin groans.

When the whole ordeal is over, Jiwoo hands Hyunjin a mirror. She’s in a shimmering black top and gold pants, all borrowed from Jiwoo, but her face looks exactly the same. “I don’t see the makeup?”

Jiwoo waves her hand dismissively. “You’ll notice. Jinsol is going to love it.”

“Jinsol?” Hyunjin yelps. “What does she have to do with any of this?”

“Heejin is helping her get ready,” Jiwoo says. “We’re doing matching outfits.”

“I don’t see the  _ point _ ,” Hyunjin mutters, “considering that we haven’t talked for a while and this isn’t even a fancy party. It’s just Sooyoung.”

Jiwoo hesitates, which makes Hyunjin think she has a point, but nobody has ever successfully gotten between a wild Jiwoo and her goal. “Nonsense. This is going to be excellent.”   
-

**_interlude: a very short history of kim hyunjin and ha sooyoung’s parties (because there really haven’t been that many)_ **

Sooyoung, contrary to her appearance, is kind of a nerd. Hyunjin had been intimidated by her for a solid month after they’d met, so she’d hesitated before accepting Sooyoung’s invitation to a party.

Sooyoung’s family’s house was about twice the size of Hyunjin’s and it was next to a bakery to boot, but instead of the fancy party Hyunjin had been expecting, they watched baking shows for an hour and then played Minecraft for an hour after that, all of which was accompanied by cake.

Uneventful, but nice.

The second year, she’d hosted a Halloween party. Hyunjin’s intimidation had faded even more when Sooyoung had showed up in a cereal killer costume, and she’d mocked the older girl relentlessly for it. 

Jinsol’s elf costume had also, objectively, been stupid. Subjectively, however? Hyunjin loved it.

Hyunjin suspected that this year her party luck was going to be over.

-

“Welcome!” Sooyoung cries, nearly opening the door in Jiwoo’s face.

“Why do you smell like cat food?” Hyunjin says, slipping inside. The house already seems full; Chaewon is playing some song on the radio and Haseul is (unwisely) using her laser pointer inside. 

Sooyoung rolls her eyes. “What kind of greeting is that?”

Jiwoo sniffs. “It’s an important question.” 

Sooyoung sighs. “I got a cat. I’m… still working out how to pour the food.”

“Where’s the cat?” Hyunjin asks. 

“What-”

“Cat. Where.”

“Upstairs,” says Sooyoung weakly, and Hyunjin hurries upstairs. She loves cats, but her mother is allergic, so any opportunity to see a cat is one she welcomes.

Maybe the party wouldn’t be so bad after all.

-

The party is bad, but only in the good way.

Yeojin has somehow acquired a flipbook of Shakespeare insults and is reading through them at random. “You spongy, lily-livered, idiot-worshipper!” she yells at Hyunjin, who just glares at her in return. 

“I don’t even know what that means.”   


“It means you’re soft and cowardly and the last one is self-explanatory!” Yeojin hollers back. 

Jinsol stands up from her place on the couch, producing a plastic sword out of nowhere. “Is that a challenge?”   


“You’re not Hyunjin, but sure,” Yeojin says, grabbing a lightsaber from Vivi, who looks vaguely startled. “Prepare for the rap battle of a century!”

Jinsol pokes her sword at Yeojin; neither of them look like they know what they’re doing, although Hyunjin wouldn’t be surprised if Yeojin had a degree in swordfighting or something. “Thou art an insolent, mouse-eaten coxcomb!”

Yerim gasps. Jungeun sighs. Chaewon mutters “fight, fight,” under her breath.

“Musty rug-headed hypocrite!” Yeojin fires back. 

“Pestiferous sheep-biting mushrump!”

Hyejoo leans over to Hyunjin and whispers, “That’s just an alternate spelling of mushroom.”

Yeojin does look rather mushroomy sometimes, but Hyunjin doesn’t say that. She does like mushrooms, so it’s not even an insult.

“Lesbian knave!”

Jinsol stops waving her sword about in confusion, and Yeojin takes the opportunity to ‘stab’ her with the lightsaber. “I win!”

“What-”

“I win,” Yeojin repeats, more stern this time. Almost as an afterthought, she turns to Hyunjin and adds, “you useless potato finger.”

Sooyoung coughs. “I think it’s time for dinner!”

“Definitely,” Jungeun agrees. “Uh- Jinsol, Hyunjin, do you two want to pick up the sweet potato pie from the bakery? Yeojin, you can stay here.”

It’s clearly a ploy to get Jinsol and Yeojin away from each other; Hyunjin is just an afterthought. She allows it, though, and says, “Sure.” To Yeojin, she adds, “Bye, mushrump,” producing a squawk.

Jinsol laughs, though, so it’s worth it.

-

It’s not too cold for December-almost-January, but Jinsol still puts an arm around Hyunjin for the five steps it takes for them to get to the bakery. “Your outfit is really cute,” she says, and internally Hyunjin thanks Jiwoo. 

“So is yours,” she says out loud, even though it’s the same thing but blue and silver. 

Jinsol squishes her cheeks. “Thank you!”

Hyunjin groans, but she accepts the cheek squishing anyway, pushing the door open into the bakery. “All the cakes always look so good,” she says, squinting at the glass display case. There’s a leftover yule log from the holidays that’s calling out to Hyunjin, but she doesn’t have nearly enough money or space for it, so they just wait for the cashier to notice them.

“Pie for Sooyoung, right?”

“Yup!” Jinsol says before Hyunjin can get to it. “Thank you.”

Hyunjin feels almost disappointed that this is probably the last time she’ll be alone with Jinsol this year, but it’s a nice day and everything is more or less okay. She might as well enjoy this while it lasts.

-

Haseul, being Haseul, makes a speech about ten minutes before midnight. She appears slightly drunk, despite the fact that there’s no alcohol around. “I love you all,” she sings, strumming on what appeared to be Jinsol’s guitar. “Thank you for being my friends and my family and enduring my empanada constellations. I hope our next year together is just as good.”

She starts to talk about camp, and Hyunjin tunes out just in time for Jiwoo to push her off the couch. “There’s a myth that says that if you kiss someone just as the clock strikes midnight, something good happens to you,” she yells. “Now go find partners or at least willing participants and create a good 2020!”

Jungeun mutters something that sounds like “I hate you all,” but she lets an eager Sooyoung tug her and Haseul towards another room. 

Hyunjin is pretty sure Jiwoo had made up the myth just in the hopes of getting a kiss, which is confirmed when Jiwoo grabs the abandoned guitar and attempts/fails to play a simple chord. “JEON HEEJIN,” Jiwoo screams, “WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?”

“It’s January, dumbass,” Heejin mutters, but she accepts Jiwoo’s hand. 

Hyunjin is happy for both relationships, but as she looks around and watches everyone else disappear to go look at the stars alone, she can’t help but feel a little lonely. Maybe crushes aren’t for her after all.

“Lights out!” Sooyoung yells from another room. All the lights in the house click off at the same time, which is maybe a bit more dramatic than necessary.

Hyunjin checks her phone.

11:54.

Someone taps her on the shoulder, and Hyunjin jumps. It’s just Jinsol, though, and she beams at Hyunjin. “I need to find you a girlfriend,” the older girl says, squishing her cheeks again. “You look so lonely all by yourself.”

“So do you,” Hyunjin points out, dodging the squish. “Did you know your lips are glowing?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Jinsol says. “Did you do that on purpose?”

Hyunjin shakes her head. “No, Jiwoo… Jiwoo and Heejin planned this.”

Jinsol shakes her fist comically. “Curse Jiwoo, Heejin and their lovebird ways.”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin mutters. She’s pretty sure she knows what the lip gloss means, but she doesn’t say anything about it. “Remind me to get them back later.”

Jinsol smiles at her, and somehow she looks like a lost puppy. “Let it be known that you’re my favorite baby of the year.”

“The year?” Hyunjin says. “Why not the decade?”

“Well, technically the decade ends in-” Jinsol starts, but Hyunjin shushes her.

“No need to get technical.”

“Okay,” Jinsol says, shaking her head. 11:57. “Are you going to camp next year?”

“Of course,” says Hyunjin almost automatically. “I- my friends. Our friends.”

“Then it’ll be okay,” Jinsol says with so much conviction Hyunjin is taken aback. “I know you’ve been avoiding me. But- just because I’m gone doesn’t mean the twelve of us won’t stay connected. This new year is going to be the best one yet.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know exactly what to say. Jinsol doesn’t understand- doesn’t know what she means to Hyunjin. Doesn’t know the true depth of her feelings.

Maybe she does, and she’s just being polite.

Or maybe Jinsol is right, and Hyunjin’s little crush doesn’t matter as long as the twelve of them are together and happy. 

She checks her watch. 11:59.

And it’s the last opportunity for stupidity of the decade, so Hyunjin leans forward and kisses Jinsol on the cheek.

“Happy new year,” she says, and outside a firework booms. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you have any thoughts/questions/suggestions, i love comments! i promise i don't bite


End file.
